
HOTTEST - Chili Pepper - Fort Mill, SC
N 35° 00.493 W 080° 56.604
17S E 505163 N 3873956
The Guinness World Record for the hottest chili pepper was set at PuckerButt Pepper Co in Fort Mill, South Carolina.
Waymark Code: WM190AG
Location: South Carolina, United States
Date Posted: 11/01/2023
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The record for hottest chili pepper in the world was recently set by Ed Currie in South Carolina. He also owned the prior record for his Carolina Reaper pepper which was certified by Guinness at 1.64 million Scoville Heat Units. His improved pepper is named Pepper X and the new record is an average of 2.69 million units. Associated Press news article below:
"Ed Currie, the South Carolina hot pepper expert who crossbred and grew the Carolina Reaper that’s hotter than most pepper sprays police use to subdue unruly criminals, has broken his own world record with a pepper that’s three times hotter.
Pepper X was publicly named the hottest pepper in the world on Oct. 9 by the Guinness Book of World Records, beating out the Reaper in Currie’s decadelong hunt to perfect a pepper that he says provides “immediate, brutal heat.”
Currie said when he first tried Pepper X, it did more than warm his heart.
“I was feeling the heat for three-and-a-half hours. Then the cramps came,” said Currie, one of only five people so far to eat an entire Pepper X. “Those cramps are horrible. I was laid out flat on a marble wall for approximately an hour in the rain, groaning in pain.”
Heat in peppers is measured in Scoville Heat Units. Zero is bland, and a regular jalapeno pepper registers about 5,000 units. A habanero, the record-holder about 25 years ago, typically tops 100,000. The Guinness Book of World Records lists the Carolina Reaper at 1.64 million units.
Pepper X’s record is an average of 2.69 million units. By comparison, pepper spray commonly holstered by police is around 1.6 million units. Bear spray advertises at 2.2 million units.
Pepper X has been in the works since Currie last set the hottest pepper record in 2013 with the Carolina Reaper, a bright red knobby fruit with what aficionados call a scorpion tail. The goal was to offer an extremely hot pepper flavored with sweetness.
Pepper X is greenish-yellow, doesn’t have the same shelf appeal and carries an earthy flavor once its heat is delivered. It’s a crossbreed of a Carolina Reaper and what Currie mysteriously classifies as a “pepper that a friend of mine sent me from Michigan that was brutally hot.”-
Pepper X marks the spot as South Carolina pepper expert scorches his own Guinness Book heat record